


we rattle together in a bed of honey

by deathsweetqueen



Series: Tony Stark Bingo 2019: Round 2 [17]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Domestic Violence, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark at MIT, Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 07:44:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20373193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: Toni first met James Rhodes in Cellular Neurophysiology and Computing, when she was fourteen and trying very hard to stay in the shadows. She stumbles into the classroom, clutching her books and binders and pencil case close to her chest, as she stares at everything, wide-eyed and hungry and terrified. She seizes on the contempt, the confusion, the incredulity of the other freshman who look at her like she’s an incongruity – she’s used to that look, all that hate and derision.She eats it up like chocolate cake.Much to her luck, all the seats are filled, all except for one towards the middle of the row, a table shared only by a tall, handsome black boy, sleeping on top of the counter.





	we rattle together in a bed of honey

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the "MIT era" square for the Iron Husbands Bingo 2019, the "James "Rhodey" Rhodes/War Machine" square (N4) for the Ladies of Marvel Bingo 2019, and the "first kiss" square (K4) for the Tony Stark Bingo 2019, which gives me a blackout!
> 
> The title for this fic comes from Emma Bleker's poem, 'Morning in February', which can be found here: https://stolenwine.tumblr.com/post/157024778553/we-move-together-on-my-front-porch-in-morning-the

Toni first met James Rhodes in Cellular Neurophysiology and Computing, when she was fourteen and trying very hard to stay in the shadows. She stumbles into the classroom, clutching her books and binders and pencil case close to her chest, as she stares at everything, wide-eyed and hungry and terrified. She seizes on the contempt, the confusion, the incredulity of the other freshman who look at her like she’s an incongruity – she’s used to that look, all that hate and derision.

She eats it up like chocolate cake.

Much to her luck, all the seats are filled, all except for one towards the middle of the row, a table shared only by a tall, handsome black boy, sleeping on top of the counter.

She eyes the rest of the room with trepidation and sighs, making her way to the empty seat. She places her things on top of the table, hoping that she wouldn’t suddenly alert the attention of her table-mate, who’s more likely to hate the idea of sharing space with a fourteen-year-old than be the _one, kind person_ Toni had met since she’d moved to Cambridge.

But, of course, because the universe hates her like nothing else, he’s eventually roused awake, when the professor strides in, takes into account the sleeping form of her table-mate and proceeds to loudly shout out his name.

“Mr Rhodes,” he snaps. “Perhaps, since you find this class an utter waste of your time, you could explain to the class what an excitable membrane is?”

Rhodes – as the professor referred to him – jumps alive with a loud noise that made everyone giggle (despite the glint of fear she’d seen in all their eyes when the question was first voiced – they have no idea what they’re doing, and they have the nerve to laugh – and people call _her_ arrogant, honestly), and he simply stares at the teacher for a moment, with wide, dark eyes, and finally finds the use of his tongue.

“Uh,” Rhodes rubs the back of his neck, sheepishly. “A membrane capable of producing an action potential?”

Toni startles a little in her seat. Finally, someone intelligent.

The professor, on the other hand, looks quite put out that he couldn’t humiliate Rhodes in front of the class for getting the question wrong, and simply has to put up with the right answer.

He grunts. “If I see you sleeping again in my class, it’s an automatic fail. Do you understand?”

Rhodes nods.

“Good.”

The professor goes on, turning the topic onto coversion channels, in a bland, monotoned voice that makes Toni sigh and start tracing abstract patterns on her binder.

She didn’t even realise that Rhodes has leaned over until he speaks, his warm, amused voice unbearably soft.

“He’s kind of an ass, isn’t he?” he comments.

Toni swallows hard and stares at him, for a moment, to the point and long enough that Rhodes’ face contorts with concern.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Toni says, immediately. “It’s just… you were talking to me?” she questions.

Rhodes frowned. “Well, yeah, who else would I be talking to?” he says, slowly.

“I just…” Toni stops talking, just in case she’d say something she’d regret. She shakes her head, deciding to not to look too deep. “Forget it. You’re right. He is.”

Rhodes grins at her, all teeth, satisfied. “James Rhodes,” he introduces, sticking out his hand.

Toni takes it, tentatively. “Antonia Stark.”

“An-to-ni-a,” he sounds out, carefully. “I like it.”

Toni flushes and stares down at her binder, lying innocuously on the table. “So, James? Is that what everyone calls you.”

“Well,” Rhodes shrugs. “Jim. My mum and sister call me Jimmy.”

“Jim,” Toni murmurs.

She likes it.

“So, you wanna pair up for this thing?” Jim offers, making a sweeping gesture towards the big group assessment the professor was currently outlining on the whiteboard at the front of the class.

Toni blinks. “Oh, you’re, uh, you’re okay with that?” she asks, shyly.

She’s careful, wary, because this could easily be a joke, and she doesn’t know if she wants to push that envelope.

But she’s so aware, no one wants to be friends with her.

Why would this beautiful boy be the first?

“Yeah, why not?” Jim asks, casually, leaning back to stretch his arms over his head and yawning a little.

“I just…” Toni shakes her head, the question, the insecurity, right on the tip of her tongue. “Don’t worry about it. Should we meet up or something?”

She’s not sure how this goes, if there’s etiquette or a rulebook that she was never allowed access to, but she tries her best with what she has.

Jim nods, easily, like he hadn’t even thought twice about what she said. “Yeah, sure. You know that coffee place on the corner of this building; how about we go there after class?”

Toni nods, staring up at him through her eyelashes, in wonder. “Yeah, yeah,” she almost stammers. “That sounds good-I mean, great.”

He beams at her shamelessly.

Something inside her melts.

* * *

It takes no longer than a coffee date for the two of them (she blurts out _Rhodey_ one day and never goes back) to become best friends. Toni is still as bewildered and shy as she was on the day they met, padding around to avoid Rhodey’s soft spots (if he gets angry, he won’t talk to her again, and then where would she be?). But all her skill fails her one day, and the rage in Rhodey burns hot and fast, and she cringes, thinking this is the day, _this_ is the day that everything between them is ruined.

He storms out of her room, the door closing with a slam, and she’s half close to tears, on top of the sheets, her heart in her stomach, curled into a ball.

Two hours later, he’s knocking on her door with a carton of kung pao chicken and an apology, and she learns, _not everyone leaves._

* * *

When the holidays come around, Toni introduces Ty to Rhodey, with all the excitement she can muster, because she loves Rhodey and she loves Ty (they know her best; they _love_ her best, without a fair acknowledgement of Edwin and Ana Jarvis) and she wants them to love each other as much as she loves them.

To his credit, Rhodey approaches the meeting with grace, giving Ty a broad, toothy smile, and he sticks his hand out for Ty to shake.

Ty just stares at it like it’s a cockroach on a stick, a strange, disdainful expression on his face that makes Toni’s heart drop like a stone into her stomach, before he gives a gruff little nod at Rhodey, absent-minded like he doesn’t want to do it, but has no other choice.

“Jim, is it? Yeah, good to meet you, man,” he says, distracted. His eyes centre on her. “Annie, you ready to go?”

Rhodey’s smile quickly dims, and Toni feels the sting of humiliation, mortifying and hot and more.

It’s much worse than she ever thought.

Ty absolutely _hates_ Rhodey.

_Hates_, in a way that Toni didn’t think possible.

She goes with Ty, because it’s Ty and it’s easier mollifying him than it is staying away and having to put up with rages, but the night out ends with her back in her dorm room in tears, after he’s dropped her off and fucked her and left her with a vicious little tirade about her being some _lying little slut, slumming it with her goddamn lab partner, while he’s out there waiting for her like a fucking fool._

There’s a knock on her door.

For a moment, Toni considers leaving it alone, and then, with a sigh, she rolls off the bed and pads over to the door, throwing it open.

Rhodey stands on the other side, on her doorstep, hands shoved in his jeans pocket, with the gentlest look possible on his face.

She takes one look at his face and knows he heard everything, every awful, savage thing Ty had flung at her to make her cry and feel like shit, and she bites her mouth raw, the blood hot in her face.

“So…” she trails off, staring down at her feet.

“Your boyfriend’s a dick,” Rhodey says, bluntly.

Toni flinches. “Yeah,” she says, roughly, past the strange tightness in her chest. “I’m… I’m, uh, sorry about that, this morning. He was… he shouldn’t have acted like that towards you. And yeah, if you heard, what he said, he was pretty loud, I’m sorry, I probably, uh, I probably disturbed you.”

“Toni,” Rhodey says, earnestly. “Toni, I’m not here to give you shit for being loud. I’m here to see if you’re okay.”

Toni swallows, compulsively. “Oh,” she says, lamely.

She blinks back tears.

No one ever wants to see if she’s okay.

She rubs the back of her neck and she feels the thick, cloying urge to defend Ty, like she’s always defended Ty, because he’s better than anything she’s ever known before that, because he loves her.

_He loves her_, she knows that.

She gives him a smile, as false as they come, and prays, _prays_ that he believes it.

But he doesn’t; he just gives her a judgy look through his long, dark eyelashes.

She rubs her arms as if she were cold. “It’s not… it’s not what you think,” she tries.

Rhodey sighs. “Toni.”

“He loves me,” she insists. “He’s just… he’s not very good with people, that’s all.”

Rhodey wraps his arms around her in an embrace that knocks the air out of her lungs.

“That’s not the kind of love you want, Toni,” he mutters in her ear.

Toni shakes her head, her lungs constricting. “He _loves_ me, Rhodey.”

_He does. Ty loves me._

* * *

Ty does love her; but he hates her at the same time.

When the time comes for her to end it between them, after months and years of Rhodey urging her onwards, it doesn’t go well.

He screams at her, like he always does, calls her every name in the book (he’s called her a slut so many times that it’s almost lost meaning by this point), promises that no one will ever love her the way he does, because she’s not made for that, love, that is, and for a moment, she believes it.

She believes every awful thing he’s ever said to her, and all that hate and disgust and anger twists up in the hollow, empty spaces in her heart and in her ribs, until it swells up inside her, like a vicious bruise, and Toni starts shaking, head to foot.

She says something, she doesn’t even remember, but it might have been along the lines of calling him a _spineless bastard who gets off on bullying people because his dick is too small to make an impact_ and he hits her right across the face.

She lands on the ground, her world flaring up in pain, and she cowers on the floor, curling away from him, as she waits and waits and waits for another blow, because it never stops at one.

But the second never comes.

When she looks up, Rhodey is there and he’s gripping Ty by the scuff of his shirt and bodily yanking him away.

If she hadn’t just been assaulted by the boy she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with, she’d have laughed at the dumbstruck, flailing look on his face.

“Man, just when I think you can’t get any worse,” Rhodey growls, before hauling off and punching Ty in the face, so hard he goes down too, with a smack.

Blood mats Ty’s handsome face, and Toni thinks his nose is broken. Her lip curls, satisfied, and bites her mouth to hold back hysterical laughter when Ty just stares up at Rhodey, so shocked, so unbelieving that someone would dare to lay hands on the great, significant Tiberius Stone.

Oy, how could she ever have thought _this one_ was her future, when Rhodey, this beautiful man who loves her so much, just beat the shit out of him, and it was all for her.

“Get the fuck out of here,” Rhodey says, coldly, grabbing Ty again and pulling him to his feet.

“You-you-you can’t hit me,” Ty pants, his face going purple with fury. “Do you have any fucking idea who I _am_, what I can _do_ to you, you flat-broke groupie piece of shit?”

For a second, Toni’s terrified, because she’s seen that look, she’s seen it so many times in his eyes and she’s always so frightened by it, and Toni knows, when Ty’s angry, he’ll do anything and everything to make sure he’s satisfied.

Rhodey meets Ty’s gaze without flinching, his jaw like stone. “Try me, motherfucker,” he offers. “Now, get the fuck out of here, or I’ll give you a broken leg to match that nose.”

Ty gives her one more vicious, bitter, seething glare that makes her flinch and hate herself for flinching (like she’s weak, like he _makes_ her weak), and storms out of her dorm room.

Rhodey kneels beside her, all that rage in his face suddenly melting into softness. He touches her jaw where it throbs and she winces, gritting her teeth against the ache and the humiliation.

She hates that he sees her like this, that Ty made her this, so miserable and so browbeaten, like she isn’t the smartest fucking bitch she knows, like wolves and girls aren’t birthed from the same beast, and she _is_ that beast. 

She hates it, that he’s tried to eat her all because he’s starving.

Rhodey’s thumb swipes over her lip and comes back red, startling her out of the red of her rage.

_Huh._

She hadn’t even realised that she was bleeding.

“Has he done this before?” he asks, firmly.

Toni opens her mouth to say no – it’s almost instinctive – but then she remembers nights of getting drunk with him, the bruises she’d have on her body come morning, a mottled canvas of peach and yellow and rage-ridden purple, that had nothing to do with sex and the way Ty would laugh and kiss her hair and call her his little klutz.

_Oh._

The betrayal, the hurt, the anger, comes up in her throat like bile, and she doesn’t know what he sees on her face, but it sours his expression further, his jaw going taut.

“It’s going to be okay, Toni,” he urges. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Toni nods, dully.

It will.

It will be okay.

She’ll _make_ it okay. She won’t ever let herself end up here, on the floor, her lungs in her throat, ever again.

“I’ll get you some ice, yeah?”

He moves to stand, but she grips his wrist, keeping him down.

“Not yet,” she says, thinly, but fiercely.

She wants to memorise this feeling, this ugly, wrenching fury that makes her shake, because on the inside, she’s screaming like an animal caught in mantrap, all loud and raw and awful.

Rhodey reads between the lines of her words, with such easy, unthinking familiarity, and nods.

They sit there, on the ground, in her room, and he doesn’t let go of her hand, not for one moment, and she thinks, this is the moment, this is the moment that she falls in love with James Rhodes.

* * *

Ty comes back one more time.

He says the same things he’s always said, about her, about him, about them, pretending like their love is something out of a fairy tale. The air rattles about in her lungs when he reaches out to touch her bruised jaw and the cut on her lip, so gentle and so sweetly, and where his touch would’ve once filled her with a strange sort of rush, she just feels _empty._

Maybe she’s finally off him.

Or maybe she’s finally understood that Ty’s act is always so stale, so predictable.

Love really does blind you, apparently.

The shocking twist to his usual repertoire comes when he realises she’s not responding the way he wants her to and instead starts raging about how that _ghetto trash_ had the goddamn nerve to _hit_ him and how he’s going to make the fucker suffer, and Toni blanks out.

The next thing she knows, she’s reaching for the hammer on her desk and gripping the handle until she goes white-knuckled.

“I will bash your skull in,” she says, quietly. “The same way you thought backhanding me was an appropriate romantic gesture, you girlfriend-beating, miserable piece of shit.” She steps forward and revels in the way that he takes a step back.

Good.

He should be afraid of her.

She wants him afraid of her. Everyone should be afraid of her.

“You don’t come near Rhodey, you don’t come near me, you don’t come near anything or everything that I love ever again, do you understand me?” She hears the sound of her heartbeat in her ears. “This is done. _We are done_.” She squeezes the hammer.

She could do it, she thinks, hit him and hit him and hit him until he’s on the ground, blood and viscera streaking the ground.

She doesn’t know what that says about her.

“Annie,” he tries.

“If you don’t, I will burn you to the ground,” she says, steadily, calmly. “You know I will, and you know I can.”

“Annie, you don’t want to do this. We’re _more_ than this, Annie!”

Toni shakes her head. “You’ve ruined me, Ty,” she whispers. “I loved you so much, I loved you more than anything in this world, and you’ve ruined me. No more, Ty. No more. Leave, go home, and never come back again. I don’t want to see you.”

“Annie,” he moans, reaching for her. “I love you, Annie. I love you more than anything.”

Toni reels away from his touch, lingering somewhere in a heart-wrenching mix of hate and confusion.

“If you loved me, you wouldn’t have done that, you wouldn’t have put your hands on me like that,” she snaps. “And if I forgive you, I’m an idiot, and I won’t let you make me an idiot. _Leave_.”

“Annie,” he tries one last time.

She brandishes the hammer. “_Leave_,” she says, coldly.

Ty looks at her, viciously, like he could wring her throat. “You’ll regret this, you know,” he grits out, in an ugly tone. “No one will ever love you like I do.”

His words ring true, and it’s like salt water in a still-bleeding wound.

“Maybe so,” she concedes. “But I’ll live, and I’ll have survived you.” She bares her teeth. “Now, get out and don’t come back.”

* * *

When she’s eighteen, Rhodey takes her to his home for Easter, even though she feels like shit for abandoning Jarvis like that (he shouldn’t be alone; it’s only been two years since Ana passed and she thinks he doesn’t deal with it well when she’s not there), but she can’t say no to his whiskey-brown eyes blinking owlishly at her until she gives it.

She huffs a little when he gives a little cheer.

She’s nervous in the car from Philadelphia Airport, her hands wringing together in her lap. Rhodey sees it, frowns and reaches for her hands, squeezing them in his larger palms, warm and so certain.

“It’s going to be okay,” he insists.

Toni rolls her eyes, because that’s the sort of person she is. “Of course, it will be,” she says, mock-confidently.

Rhodey stares at her, firm and deliberate, and she can’t help herself, the words spilling out like a torrent.

“Well, what if they don’t like me?” she asks, lamely.

Rhodey gives her a grin, boyish and unencumbered. “Of course, they will,” he soothes.

“But…” she trails off.

“You’ve met my ma and my sister already. It’s not like they’re strangers,” he points out.

“Well, yeah, but I met them on campus, not like… at your house or anything. It’s different,” she urges.

“They’ll love you, Toni,” Rhodey nudges her. “They’ll love you ‘cause I love you. That’s all there is to it.”

_You don’t love me the way I want you to love me, though_, Toni thinks, morosely, and stares down at her lap.

Rhodey had firmly placed her in the _little sister_ box four years ago and she couldn’t seem to climb out, no matter how much she tried, even after she dropped the dead weight that had been Tiberius Stone, even after he saw her naked and was treated to the sight that she was most certainly _not_ a little girl anymore.

_Nothing_.

She’s definitely a little vain, so she’s more than a little offended that he’s seen her tits and still doesn’t want her.

Rhodey pulls her in close and she hates how easily she leans into his unshakeable warmth.

“Hey,” he says, gently. “It’s gonna be okay, okay? I take care of you, you take care of me, right?”

Toni nods into his shoulder. “I take care of you, you take care of me,” she repeats.

* * *

In retrospect, she feels like an idiot for being so nervous, because Roberta and Jeanette Rhodes are fucking amazing people and she absolutely adores them. Despite a rocky start, in which Rhodey’s sister had been a tad suspicious of the rich bitch her brother was bringing home for the holidays, the three women hit it off like a hydrogen bomb.

Jeanette starts fondly referring to her as _white girl_, and she huffs.

“You know I’m Latina, right?” Toni points out.

Jeanette laughs and pinches her cheek. “Still whiter than me, girl.”

Jeanette reminds her so much of Rebecca, she feels that thick, cloying wistfulness for her godsister heavy in her stomach like she’s had way too much to eat.

There’s a tug on her wrist.

“Come on, Ma always makes a leg of lamb for Easter, and you’re helping out,” Jeanette insists.

Toni immediately protests. “I’m not really… a cooking type of person?” she tries. “I mean, I make mean Jewish holiday food, but anything beyond that… I, like, have a cook for that.”

_Had a cook for that_, she corrects, even though ‘cook’ is an inferior term for what Ana had been to her, but she doesn’t linger on that dangerous thought for long, lest she ruin this entire holiday for herself and everyone around her.

Jeanette rolls her eyes. “God, rich girl much?”

Toni shrugs. “Can’t help that one. Still doesn’t mean I’m going to help make lamb. Trust me, I’d be doing you a favour. You’d, like, die of food poisoning if I had any hand in it.”

“We’ll watch you like a hawk, if it makes you feel better,” Jeanette promises, entwining their fingers. “But if you don’t get that cute little butt into that kitchen, I can’t promise I’ll save you from Ma’s rage.”

Toni flutters her eyelashes. “You think my butt’s cute?”

At least one Rhodes thinks so.

Jeanette makes a huge show of checking her out. “Yeah, it’s definitely up there.” She pinches it, making Toni squeak. “Really firm, great curvage. Wow, white girl, you really worked on this, huh? Almost as good as mine.”

Toni rubs at her arse. “Actually, totally HaShem-given.” Jeanette gives her a look. She shrugs. “You really think I have the time or patience to go to the gym?” Her nose wrinkles. “Ew.”

“Still,” Jeanette pats her on the arse. “Very nice. I approve.”

“Uh, what did I just walk on?”

Toni and Jeanette turn around, only to find Rhodey lingering in the doorway to the lounge room.

“Jeanette,” Rhodey begins, slowly. “Why are you groping my best friend?”

Jeanette clears her throat, withdrawing her hand. “It’s not my fault that the first girl you bring around here is a hot piece of arse, quite literally,” she retorts.

Toni beams at her. “I like her. Why did I ever think this was going to be awful, honeybear?”

Jeanette latches on quickly, her eyes glinting with interest. “_Honeybear_?” she asks, delighted.

Rhodey groans. “Don’t, just _don’t_.”

“Are you two fucking?” Jeanette asks, bluntly.

Toni chokes. _I wish, sister._

Rhodey makes a hurt little noise in the back of his throat. “No, no, _fuck_, no.”

It takes everything in Toni to bite back the full-body flinch that threatens at Rhodey’s abrupt words.

_Well_, she thinks, bitterly. _Thanks for making your opinion on that so clear, Rhodey. I really appreciate having my heart stomped on in front of your cool sister._

Jeanette narrows her eyes. “Huh,” she says, as if she doesn’t quite believe them. “Anyway, Ma wants us to help with the lamb. You know what happens when you make the woman wait.”

“I tried to explain why meat and me are a terrible combination, but she wouldn’t listen to me,” Toni chimes in.

Rhodey shakes his head. “Yeah, you might want to rethink that plan, Jean; Toni… burns water.”

“Once,” Toni says, offended. “That happened_ once_.”

Rhodey stares at her. “One is too many times.” He gives her a suspicious look. “Yet, somehow, you make really good latkes.”

Toni shrugs. “There are many layers to my personality. Don’t pigeonhole me. It’s rude.”

“Rude,” Rhodey scoffs. “Rude is what happened to that pot when you were done with it.”

“I got you a new one!” Toni protests.

“And then you programmed it to _self_-boil water! It almost burned the apartment down!”

“Which wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t have left the radiator on, remember?”

“That wasn’t _my_ fault!”

“There are literally two of us who live in that apartment, Rhodey. Who else could it have been?”

“Okay, when did you two start screwing, and why the hell didn’t you tell me, Jim?” Jeanette demands.

Toni makes a sound in the back of her throat that sounds like a cat in heat, while Rhodey just chokes, his eyes going wide and glassy.

“The fuck are you talking about, Jean?” Rhodey snaps.

Jeanette scowls at him. “Oh, please, the two of you _have_ to be screwing. Platonic, my arse. Friends don’t talk to each other, or _look_ at each other, the way you two do. I can see honest-to-God hearts in your eyes, little brother.”

“We’re just friends,” Toni insists, although something inside her wilts in defeat to make that admission.

“Yeah,” Rhodey agrees, too easily for Toni’s comfort. “Just friends. Totally platonic.”

Jeanette gives them a scathing look. “You two are so heavily in denial that it’s almost painful to watch. I’m going to go into the kitchen, and you two can deal with the serious _non_-platonic tension going on here.”

Rhodey growls. “There’s no non-platonic _anything _going on here,” he calls out after Jeanette as she sways her hips on her way to the kitchen.

Jeanette laughs, much to Toni’s utter dismay. “You keep thinking that, little brother.”

Rhodey shakes his head once Jeanette has slithered her way into the kitchen and closed the door. Knowing what Toni knows about Jeanette and Roberta, she’s around 87.76% certain that they have their ears pressed against the other side of that door.

It’s too bad that they have to disappoint them.

“I’m sorry about her,” Rhodey says, wrinkling his nose. “She shouldn’t have said that stuff, about you and me. I’ll, uh, set her straight, later on.”

Toni shrugs. “It’s okay. I mean, she’s hardly the first person to assume that, right?” she points out.

“Yeah, but it’s different coming from idiot frat guy trying to get in your pants. This is my sister, and you’re our guest,” Rhodey argues.

“Seriously, Rhodey, it’s fine,” she says, gently. “I know…” she chews on her lower lip. “I know we’re not like that, and you know that we’re not like that. I mean, what a joke, right?”

Toni lets out a laugh that sounds pathetic even to her; anger curdles in her stomach.

Why can’t she keep it together in front of him just for a moment?

Rhodey’s brow furrows, his good humour quickly dimming. “Why’d you say it like that?” he asks, almost hurt.

Toni blinks. “I just…” she trails off. “I mean, we’re not, right?” she offers, uncertainly. “We’re just friends, like you told Jean.”

“Yeah, but that’s ‘cause you’re not interested in me like that, right?” Rhodey says, slowly.

That sours her expression further. “Exactly how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Toni,” Rhodey begins, softly, like she’s stupid, which only makes her jaw go taut and her hackles rise. “You’re like the least shy person I’ve ever known, after you ditched the dead weight. When you want something, or _someone_, you go for it. You never made a move. I just assumed you weren’t interested.” He shrugs, as if he’d resigned himself to something awful, as if he’d made peace with something he hadn’t wanted to.

_You have got to be fucking kidding me._

“Would you have been interested if I’d made a move?” she asks, carefully.

Rhodey’s eyes widen. “Well, yeah, of course,” he says, as if it’s obvious. “But you knew that, right? You had to have known how I feel about you.”

“No,” she says, flatly. “No, I didn’t.”

Rhodey chuckles. “Come on, of course, you did. I wasn’t exactly subtle.”

Toni shakes her head. “Believe me, pudding pop, if you were putting any sort of vibes out there, I was _not_ picking up on it.”

“Oh,” Rhodey says, lamely. “Well, yeah, I do.”

Toni’s brow furrows. “You do _what_?”

“Like you, like that,” Rhodey replies, squaring his shoulders. “Actually, no. No, I love you like that.”

Toni draws an audible breath, and she wishes someone would’ve told her (Aunt Peggy, Jarvis, Ana, her mother, _someone_), this is what it feels like to love and be loved, warm and rich, like chocolate.

“Oh,” she says, lamely.

It seems like such a hollow word to articulate how much she wants to smile, how her stomach lurches with butterflies, how the joy swells inside her like cotton candy, the world tilting around her and flipping.

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, rubbing the back of his neck.

“You should’ve said something,” Toni accuses, wagging her finger.

Rhodey scowls. “Well, you didn’t exactly make it easy, you know,” he grumbles. “If you liked me-”

“_Loved_ you,” she corrects.

Rhodey’s dark eyes soften. “If you loved me, why didn’t you make a move?”

Toni waves her hands, helplessly. “I thought you put me in the little sister box. I didn’t think you _wanted_ me to make a move.”

“Well, I did,” Rhodey says, heavily, angrily.

“Well, I didn’t know that,” Toni retorts.

“Well, I made it kind of obvious.”

“No, you really, really didn’t.”

Rhodey blows out a breath between his teeth. “Why are we still arguing about this?”

“_You’re_ arguing,” Toni corrects, shamelessly. “I’m defending myself.”

Rhodey rolls his eyes and reaches for her, pulling her in close. His hands grip her just over her ribs, under her shirt, warm and hot and heavy.

She can feel her lungs in her throat, as one of his hands grope at her arse.

“Fuck it,” he mutters, like he’s been starving for her this whole time (she knows the feeling).

He kisses her hard, and her mouth moves under his eagerly, clutching at her shoulders with long fingers. One of his legs wedge between hers, as he hitches her up against him.

“Shit,” she breathes, when he pulls away from her.

Rhodey nods, weakly. “Yeah.”

Toni shudders from the heat she can see in his eyes. She shakes her head. “See, we could’ve been doing that this whole time if you’d just had the balls to tell me that you liked me,” she points out, punching him on the shoulder.

Rhodey glares at her. “Well, if you’d made a move on me the way you make a move on _everyone_, I wouldn’t have needed to tell you I liked you.”

Toni makes a noise of offence. “Are you slut-bashing me?” she demands.

“No, I’m not slut-bashing you-”

“Because it sure sounds like it.”

“Oh, my God, Toni, I’m not slut-bashing you.”

Toni narrows her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Toni, I’m sure.”

“I feel like you’re lying to me.”

Rhodey slants his mouth over hers to shut her up again – she’s beginning to think it’s dangerous to let him establish this is a precedent, but she’s a little too preoccupied by the way he tries to lick the taste of her out of her mouth.

A door bangs in the background.

“That is _enough_!”

Rhodey yelps when his mother grabs the neck of his shirt and bodily drags him off Toni.

“James Rupert Rhodes, if you don’t stop pawing at that girl in my house, I’ll be taking you over my knee like you’re nine years old again. You remember how much you hated being nine?” Roberta threatens.

Toni feels the need to raise her hand. “In his defence, I was a willing and eager participant,” she offers.

Roberta rounds on her, narrowing her eyes. “And you, missy, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you. Now, you get inside that kitchen and help me with this damn lamb, or this isn’t gonna be romantic for much longer, I can promise you that.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Toni and Rhodey answer promptly, the former having the strange urge to salute.

Roberta huffs, satisfied, and storms off into the kitchen, where Jeanette lingers in the doorway and gives Toni and Rhodey an over-exaggerated waggle of her eyebrows and a thumbs-up.

“Well,” Toni plants her hands on her hips. “You heard your mother. March, mister!” She points in the direction of the kitchen, sternly.

Rhodey stares at her, incredulously.

“What? I wasn’t joking,” she insists.

Rhodey narrows his eyes. “Fuck it,” he mutters, shaking his head.

Toni shrieks when he promptly picks her up and throws her over a shoulder.

“This is so unnecessary!” she shouts, kicking her legs.

“Toni, where you’re concerned, this is the only legitimate course of action,” Rhodey says, flatly.

Toni slumps over his shoulders. “Rude,” she huffs. “So rude.” 


End file.
